


Forever and After

by Heylittleyahtzee (HeyYahtzee)



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-03 06:10:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2840915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeyYahtzee/pseuds/Heylittleyahtzee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla leaves in order to give Laura a chance at a normal life and Laura is having absolutely none of that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The note is on the bedside table the morning after graduation. Carmilla never had a lot of things but the absence of them is sharp and startling. Her curling script tells Laura to not be afraid, that she'll find someone one day, that she'll be happy. 

Laura cries for three days and then does what she always does when she's lost something. 

She gets it back.

Laura packs everything she needs into a little red jeep she buys second hand from a guy named Rudy. The sun is just setting when she pulls out of town. As she drives she names all the constellations under her breath. Carmilla would have done it. Carmilla would have named their origins and their stories as well. Laura wishes she could remember them now, if only to hear Carmilla's voice playing in her head. 

When she pulls into LaF and Perry's London suburb four days later they are happy to see her. Pie is on the table and little Juliet peaks around her mother's legs only twice before deciding Laura is Acceptable. Over tea and apple filling Laura recounts her plan out loud for the very first time. Perry exclaims about drastic measures and the ease of a private detective. LaFontaine simply nods.

They end up discussing the logistics and unknown variables long into the night. There are a lot of them, Laura admits quietly. They will only get one shot at this.

LaF reminds her she won't be going in alone and Laura snorts into her whiskey.

If only that were true.

Laura sees Carmilla every time she's in a crowd. One second she's there and the next she's gone. Sometimes an unfamiliar brunette takes the vision's place, sometimes there is no one there at all. She finds herself reaching out for Carmilla's hand sometimes, in these instances, knowing that Carmilla isn't a shape in the distance because Carmilla is always and perpetually right beside-

Oh. 

She never stops looking for Carmilla. Not even when she's looking for him instead. She checks classifieds and news headings and obituaries at four am after a night on the town. Her whole life has narrowed to searching, grasping, reaching. It is, after all, what she has always done.

She isn't idle while she searches either. She writes about what and who she finds with the same enthusiasm she journaled her years at Silas. Her photographs are like nothing ever seen before, odd half captured moments and daring stunts all with Laura at the center. Before long her blog has a million followers all begging her to visit their town or their country. She goes through the list three times before she stops guessing which one is Carmilla.

She goes to New York every year on Carmilla's birthday and visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Every year she asks if anyone remembers seeing a girl matching Carmilla's description.

Every year they say no.

Three months, nineteen days, and ten hours after reading Carmilla's letter, Laura finds the man she's been looking for. He's perpetually sixteen and enjoys singing to dogs in the alley behind the restaurant where he works when he's not sneaking into R-rated movies he's far too old for. Casper is like most vampires. He believes that love is the only thing truly forever and -he tells Laura in a hushed voice one night as they sit atop the eiffel tower- after that too because love creates and creates no matter it's form and the marks never really completely fade away. 

Laura touches the scar on her neck and tells him he's probably right.

"Good," Casper says, "That means you're ready."

The first thing she remembers is a million pinpricks of light and a hunger so devastating she growls before she even knows what's happening. Flesh nudges against her teeth and suddenly her gums are splitting open with a pain that nothing will ever rival and her mouth is filled with copper and salt.

Laura drinks and drinks until the blood runs dry. Somewhere there is a voice in the distance telling her it's okay, that it will be over soon, that the price is worth the prize. It is familiar and warm and it is there again when she wakes up beneath twenty odd blankets with a mug of something warm and viscous waiting for her. Casper smiles at her and tosses her an old class ring inscribed with a V. She quirks an eyebrow at him and he reassures her that it's just an old joke some of the wanderers share.

The vampire clans broke long ago, he explains, those of us who remember like to joke that we'll have a reunion one day.

Laura laughs.

A reunion is all she's looking for.

Traveling is easier with a vampire physique. Missing trains is damn near impossible and there's a meal with every flight provided you're subtle enough. Laura goes everywhere she can possibly get her hands on. Carmilla is out there somewhere and Laura knows the day will come that they're standing in front of each other again, in whatever way the universe has in store. Immortality makes it somewhat easier, she thinks. It takes away the concept of if, and transforms every wish into a "when".

In between chasing leads on Carmilla's whereabouts she finds herself in many a diner and many a hostel. She climbs mountains and crosses the wildest terrain in the world. Every exploration is documented down to the second and by the time she's 25 travel magazines are calling every hour on the hour desperately seeking her skills. "The view of the century," Time calls her.

Her spread in National Geographic is called "Rejuvenation: Joy and the Universe."

Laura finally gets her hands on it six months after it comes out. She'd been tracking a lead up the chilean coast, sightings of a strange girl in black passing through with a Silas backpack over one shoulder. She'd received a blurry picture in response to a post she'd uploaded to her blog pleading for any information about a vaguely described Carmilla. Laura's followers are more than eager to help her find clues as to Carmilla's whereabouts but more often than not they turn up empty.

A decade goes by, two decades. Juliet gets married in a field next to a lake and it reminds Laura of how she and Carmilla always talked about tying the knot under the stars. She cries with Perry and LaFontaine but for entirely different reasons. 

Some days Laura doesn't know if she should even keep looking or not. Carmilla obviously doesn't want to be found. Laura's work is plastered every where from magazines to blockbuster films. Internet junkies rave and debate who the mysterious girl is with such frequency that Carmilla probably sees posts about herself while doing something as mundane as shopping for new leather pants. There's no way Carmilla doesn't know Laura is looking for her.

The first time someone asks her how she stays looking so young Laura is forty-five and walking the red carpet of the latest film she helped scout locations for. She manages to laugh it off and change the subject. Over the next few years she minimizes her appearances until only a select few see her at all. Her travel crew shrinks to the size of one and suddenly it is just like the old days.

For the next twenty years Laura travels the world looking at people instead of places. She's lonely and tired and seeking a connection, any connection, to temporarily stop up the hole in her heart. She publishes a ten book series called "The Faces In Between" and becomes the first journalist to ever make over a billion dollars in book sales. 

She gives almost all of it away. 

The rest she uses to dig up information on Carmilla.

The last piece of information the private detectives are able to find is a passport being used in Germany nearly fifteen years prior. Laura recognizes the date immediately. She'd been at a conference in Berlin on wildlife conservation. Carmilla had been in the very same city and yet they'd never met.

So close yet so far.

The media starts calling her out for the disappearing act. Blog posts and tabloid articles speculate as to the reason behind her sudden absence. Laura tells them it's part of her work, that solitude helps her create the art they've all grown to love. The magazines scream that she's sacrificed her whole life for her craft and artists everywhere praise her.

Oh how she wishes it were that simple.

The last 23 years of her life are spent writing a book on how to live a good long life. Laura figures it's the kind of thing someone her age should be writing. She still travels, but under a fake name. Her hair has long since been dyed a deep rich brown and glasses help her offset her look enough that she gets "well aren't you familiar" a lot more than "You're Laura Hollis!" The world thinks she's holed up at home enjoying her twilight years with her family. Word had gotten out about Casper some while ago and most people believed him to be her son. They'd had a good laugh about that one, considering. 

She still calls the Museum every year to ask about Carmilla, but she hasn't actually set foot in it since her slow fade from the limelight. The secretary might be new every few years but that doesn't stop people from recognizing her. 

When she decides it's time for Laura Hollis to die, Casper returns with a new slew of favors under his belt. They use a six month absence thirty years prior as a cover for pregnancy and mix in a disastrous scandal on Casper's part to produce a granddaughter. An impromptu nose ring completes the look and Lila Hollis makes her debut on late night TV soon after. Yes my grandma is in good health. Yes I will be taking over her business. Yes I know, we do look like twins.

Laura is 87 years old when her casket is lowered gently into the ground. Lafontaine says the eulogy over a white rose as Perry cries convincingly in the background. Nearly six hundred people show up for the funeral. Laura as Lila cries the hardest. They are saying one goodbye. She is saying all of them. 

After the reception LaF and Perry come over and they drink until they're twenty again. Laura's heart aches for Carmilla. She doesn't understand why the world is so cruel.

The announcement in the mail comes a few months later. An anonymous donor has paid for the construction of a new wing at the MET in Laura's name. The Hollis wing will showcase new and innovative photography from upcoming photo journalists and would Lila like to attend in honor of her late grandmother?

Laura replies that she would very much like to attend, but that she prefer her presence be kept under wraps. Usually she wouldn't bother with something like a grand opening but the museum holds a special place in her heart after all these years. She tells herself she's not going because of Carmilla, and she knows it is a lie.

When she walks into the museum six months later she is delighted to see none of the exhibits are familiar. Almost all of the people invited to the event are people she'd worked with at one time or another and she catches herself responding as Laura instead of Lila several times. She's relieved when the curator announces it's time for the ceremony and finds a spot to stand in the back where she won't be seen.

It's quick and uneventful. Someone makes a speech. A ribbon is cut.

Laura hesitates before actually going into the wing that bears her name. Its a little weird to be honest. Her whole life is up on the walls. She takes a deep breath and tells herself to girl the hell up. It's just an exhibit.

The display on the very first wall nearly kills her.

_Laura Hollis: The Woman Behind The lens_

The exhibit isn't only about her work, it's about Laura in and of herself. Each picture is captioned with a little blurb explaining the context and significance of the piece to her life, as well as the ways in which Laura's personality presents itself through the work. Laura has a difficult time keeping her jaw from dragging along the floor. Some of the passages are so beautiful and whole that she nearly cries. Who could have written such poignant thoughts on her life? Who could have known?

She's standing under a picture Laura took on a trip to the rainforest, all curls and a little black dress. Her pale fingers are curled around her opposite wrist loosely at her back. Her voice cuts through the air, as low and silky as ever.

“Oh I couldn’t possibly take all the credit,” she says to the curator and a wealthy patron.

“Of course you can! You put this whole wing together and since you won’t tell me your sources on any of the information you somehow dug up, you’re the only one we can give any of the credit to anyway!” The curator and the patron laugh and Carmilla, bless her vampiric heart, scuffs her nice shoes on the floor and ducks her head in embarrassment.

Laura feels like her heart is shattering into a million pieces and mending itself all in the same moment. Her skin feels hot and tight and god does she want to just run over and press herself into Carmilla’s back and hold her forever.

She doesn’t, because that would blow her cover and Carmilla’s if she has one. Instead she wanders closer and closer until she’s standing with her back to the small gathering Carmilla is at the center of. They chat for a while longer about what pieces were selected and why before the curator and the man walk off together and leave Carmilla alone.

She made this whole exhibit for me, Laura thinks to herself.

“You’ve been staring at that one an awfully long time,” Carmilla says behind her, “Do you have any questions?”

“Yeah, a couple actually,” Laura replies as she turns around to face Carmilla. The polite smile on Carmilla’s face drops away faster than lightning.

“By my calculations we haven’t seen each other in, oh I don’t know, nearly sixty five years and I was just wondering how in the world you found out all this stuff about me without ever dropping by to say hello and wow you really have gotten more attractive haven’t you?” The words spill out of her mouth like an emotional flood of giddy nerves and elation. Carmilla is stock still in front of her.

“You’re dead,” she breathes, eyes wide in disbelief. Laura grimaces.

“Yeah, about that… I sort of got myself turned into a vampire after you left and I’ve been looking for you ever since?” For a moment Carmilla looks absolutely wounded and then her hand is closing around Laura’s wrist and they’re flying across the floor towards an employees only door. It slams closed behind them and Carmilla whirls away, her hands running through her hair faster than humanely possible.

“I cannot believe you seriously went out and got yourself turned for me. Do you know how dangerous vampires can be? Contrary to popular belief I’m actually one of the cuddlier ones, Laura!” Laura frowns and reaches out for Carmilla.

“Hey, look, I’m fine! All in one piece and totally have been for the past sixty odd years! Besides what was I supposed to do? You’re the one who left all high and mighty like you were doing me some kind of service by running out on me!” Carmilla steps away from Laura and shakes her head.

“I was! I was giving you a chance to be normal for once in your life! God Laura, everyone knew how torn up you were that I was going to outlive you. I couldn’t make you live like that, and perhaps I was selfish because I didn’t want to outlive you either and I thought this… distance would soothe the pain of your passing, but it was meant to give you a chance at something real.” Laura sighs in frustration and reaches out again to take Carmilla’s hands in her own. This time Carmilla doesn’t resist, she just bites her lip and looks at the floor.

“Carm, you are real. This is what I want and I’ve spent my entire human life span trying to find you so that I could have this chance right here with you because it is the only chance that means anything to me at all. I got turned because I’m selfish and stupid and I didn’t want you to outlive me because I wanted to be with you until the day you die and if that day never comes then fine! To hell with death! Just… please don’t leave again.” Laura realizes she’s crying only when Carmilla wipes the tears away with her thumb. Her other arm snakes around Laura’s waist and Laura’s hands fall to Carmilla’s ribs with such familiarity it burns.

“I’m such an idiot,” Carmilla murmurs and she’s looking at Laura with tears in her eyes and a watery smile at her lips that speaks so many more words than her tongue could ever manage.

Laura presses her lips to Carmilla’s so softly it hardly feels real. She’s trembling and digging her fingers into Carmilla’s dress and then they’re kissing again and again and Laura doesn’t think she’s ever felt anything as perfect as the way Carmilla holds her close like she’s delicate and powerful all at once.

“I missed you,” Laura sobs, “I missed you every single day.” Carmilla nods and takes shuddering breath after shuddering breath.

“Leaving you was dying all over again,” she whispers. Laura can’t help but run her hands over every part of Carmilla she can get to. She buries her face in Carmilla’s shoulder and just breathes in her scent, all forest and fire and stale copper. Carmilla kisses every inch of Laura’s face and runs her hands through Laura’s hair. She’d forgotten how good Laura feels, how solid and real and alive she is under Carmilla’s fingertips. How had she ever left? How had she even got out the door?

“I’m never letting you out of my sight again, you stupid vampire,” Laura mumbles against her collarbone. Carmilla laughs and wipes the tears off her own face.

“Ditto, cupcake.” Laura grins and snuggles further into Carmilla’s arms. They stand there together for what must seem like ages to the people out in the gallery.

To them it just feels like the rest of their lives.

Or y’know, forever.


	2. Chapter 2

Carmilla waits until Laura’s breathing evens out. The moonlight casts soft, peaceful shadows as she presses one last kiss to Laura’s lips. By sunrise she’s sitting on the edge of a ravine two countries and a thousand miles away.

She waits until eight, Austrian standard time, and exhales slowly.

Laura is awake.

Carmilla has never needed more than what fits in the pack on her back but all of a sudden the world feels as if it’s missing something vitally important. She mourned Elle in a coffin, in the dark, an unfamiliar feeling for an unfamiliar place. Now she mourns in the company of valleys once beautiful beyond compare. After two days of walking she finds herself narrating the journey in her head. It doesn’t really sound like Laura, but that doesn’t really stop her from trying.

The moment she steps inside Mother’s old country estate, the same one she stayed in for years whenever the world got particularly boring and it wasn’t yet her time to shine, Carmilla knows she can’t stay there. Whatever she was before Laura is dead and the new monster beneath her skin doesn’t quite fit in amongst the ancient tapestries and cobwebs. She walks the halls and remembers all the dark misdeeds preformed in them, deciding in the dark that she would travel the world over looking for a place to belong. A place where she doesn’t dream of Laura crying out for her as she wastes away.

In the half-light of dawn she buys a map from a gas station merchant and marks it with blood in the parking lot.

An idiot in a truck asks her if she needs a ride and Carmilla humors him.

His mistake, honestly.

Carmilla can’t help the silly little notion that one of these days she’ll open a hotel room door and Laura will be standing on the other side. Every time she arrives somewhere she finds herself holding her breath. Laura is never there and the places are nothing like she remembers them. All the places she used to belong, the philosophies she held dear for centuries, are all but dust under her fingertips.

She never looks for Laura. Not even when she’s killing out of loneliness. Instead she runs toward a future in which Laura doesn’t exist, a place where the pain isn’t kept fresh by the knowledge that her love is still alive. It is a primal and desperate urge, just like all the others. As long as Laura is alive Carmilla will keep running.

Whether she’s running away from something or toward something, she can’t tell.

She isn’t idle while she travels. She steals books and sneaks into lectures. Stories are a comfort that could never be replaced. By the time she settles she has a small library hidden away in the mountains of Austria filled with books well read and tattered from attention. She reads them over and over until they stop distracting her. For years they are all she has. She is tired of running and sometimes she dreams of settling down and hiding from the world. It is loud and fast and she is older now than she ever thought she would be.

She lights a candle every year on Laura’s birthday and waits in the flickering shadows as it burns out.

Every year she buys a bigger candle.

Every year it dies.

Twelve years and two months after she walked away, Carmilla finds herself on the doorstep of a tiny bookshop three blocks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art that feels so familiar. The corner of the museum is visible from the front window and the owner delightfully regales her with stories of exhibits long past. She is nearing seventy and enjoys a five mile run every morning to keep the old bones a creaking before she puts in a full ten hour day in the shop because she’s the only one left in the family with any interest in books. Lucy believes that histories and ideas are the true treasures of the world, because they outlive nearly everything else and –she explains over the register as Carmilla buys an old Latin dictionary- out of all the things humans create they are the only things that truly come alive.

Carmilla returns to the bookshop every day for a month and never once looks at the help wanted sign in the window when someone might notice.

“Quit stalling and apply for the damn job!” Lucy chastises.

Carmilla is sure Lucy will fire her when she explains that customers are really not her thing and for the safety of everyone (the customers) it would be better if she works in the back doing inventory and inspecting (reading) the merchandise. Lucy is already three steps ahead of her.

When Carmilla arrives for her first day she’s banished immediately to the back room and instructed to sort through three back shipments of rare eighteenth century books. They are everything Carmilla has ever looked for and it takes her less than an hour to get lost in the pages of a million titles. Lucy comes back at lunchtime and they have tea amidst the chaos. Lucy explains that she will work from three to nine four nights a week with no one but the books and the occasional old lady to keep her company.

Carmilla moves into the apartment above the shop two weeks later but she doesn’t realize why the place feels familiar for almost a year.

The cozy atmosphere and antique décor remind her of the dorm room at Silas.

She reasons that it’s as close to home as she can get.

Surviving is easier with something to keep her mind busy. The steady flow of leather bound goodies keeps her thoughts off of Laura enough to take the edge off and gives her hands something to do that isn’t ripping out throats. Carmilla knows it can’t be forever because Lucy will die and the bookshop will fade like so many other treasures but she enjoys it while she can. She spends her nights in the eye of the tiny skylight above her bed and imagines what Laura might be up to. It hurts less with something to call her own at her back and safety in the four small walls.

When she cries she doesn’t fear Laura will hear her.

Which is a start.

The truth comes out one afternoon when a box falls and startles Carmilla. Her fangs spring out of her gums reflexively and she hisses before she can stop herself. Lucy quirks an eyebrow at her and then shakes her head. In ten minutes they have tea and Carmilla is spilling her guts about Laura and Maman and everything else that has ever gone terribly terribly wrong. She is embarrassed by the way her voice trembles when she talks about Laura. Lucy just smiles and pats her hand softly.

Lucy falls one morning trying to get ice off the front steps and the ambulance is too loud when it comes but she’s okay and Carmilla opens the shop and suffers through customers until closing because they haven’t been closed once in forty years and that streak will not be interrupted by a petulant patch of frozen water.

At the end of the day she goes to visit Lucy in the hospital and discovers Lucy has a son that doesn’t come around much because he disagrees with his mother’s lifestyle. The son has a wife and they have a daughter named Felicity who is six years old and has flowing dark hair and wide joyful eyes. Carmilla is suddenly reminded that Laura always wanted children.

She stays long enough to wish Lucy a speedy recovery.

The rest she can’t remember.

Lucy’s son moves closer to the city and all of a sudden Felicity is a regular fixture of the bookshop because her parents work and Lucy offered to watch her. She’s supposed to stay in sight of the register but somehow always finds her way into the back with Carmilla. At first Carmilla ignores her but Felicity whittles away at her resolve with dimples and a shy laugh that has Carmilla years away in a stuffy dorm room that smells like chocolate.

Felicity is helping shelve books by the end of the month.

Carmilla does not choose to learn everything about Felicity. Felicity simply talks and her life comes pouring out and whatever regard she has for her own privacy is forgotten as she muses through stories and experiences that have caught her attention. They have a lot in common, especially a love for art. Carmilla takes Felicity to the Met for her birthday and it becomes a weekly outing. In between exhibit halls Carmilla realizes that she has a family again.

It doesn’t bother her as much as she thought it would.

Carmilla is just marking the 15th anniversary of her departure when a shipment of national geographic comes in. It’s one of only three magazines Lucy’s allows in the shop and Carmilla thinks nothing of it when she tears the box open with one long claw. The box crashes to the floor and the magazines scatter across the room. By the time Lucy and Felicity come running in Carmilla is sitting against the wall with her hands in her hair, her face tight with something desperate.

Laura is on the cover in a red snow jacket somewhere up the side of a mountain, her smile as brilliant and wide as ever.

Lucy makes tea.

When Carmilla is calm again Felicity sits next to her in the picture window and fiddles with the edge of her jeans. She is nine and old enough to know about things that adults like to pretend are secrets. Carmilla doesn’t seem to notice she is there. When Felicity asks if Carmilla loved that girl in the magazine Carmilla doesn’t know what to say. She’ll always love Laura.

Felicity asks if that’s what her heart was made to do and Carmilla says yes.

Something like that.

Later she takes one of the magazines from the rack and reads Laura’s article over and over again. That leads her to other articles and pieces and by morning she has read Laura’s entire portfolio. Carmilla wipes her face with her hands and curses at herself for crying so easily. When she lays down to sleep the magazine is tucked under her pillow, open to a picture of Laura with a mug of cocoa in her hands surrounded by snow.

As she falls asleep only one thought replays in her head.

Laura is okay.

Carmilla never bothers to look at Laura’s social media, even though she knows it’s there. That would be too close, too intimate. It is better to read Laura’s professional work and piece together her life from the clues in her prose. Felicity keeps her updated on anything majorly important and brings her new articles whenever they come out. Carmilla can’t believe how fast she’s growing, leaping from 14 to 17 in the blink of an eye.

She’s sitting on the roof when Felicity slips through the window and drops down beside her. She is still in her work uniform, having just recently acquired a job at the MET working the front desk. Felicity has a cupcake in one hand and a candle in the other. It’s Carmilla’s birthday, a fact she’d only shared after a fair amount of bribery.

Felicity tells Carmilla to make a wish and Carmilla blows the candle out when it is held in front of her face. Felicity doesn’t ask. The wish is as obvious as the stars.

“Where do you think she is?” Felicity whispers. There is a hint of sorrow in her voice but Carmilla is too busy gazing at the dim stars to notice.

“Far far away,” she murmurs.

Three years later Laura disappears from the media. Carmilla is terrified at first that she’s sick or dying but Laura’s response comes through Felicity soon enough. Carmilla doesn’t quite buy “solitude for art” as Laura’s reason. Laura had never been a fan of solitude. Still, she’s happy Laura isn’t dead and leaves it at that.

Lucy dies when she’s 96 and leaves Felicity everything. Carmilla attends the funeral at a distance. Felicity smiles at her through tears and waves a little. She is 32 and the youngest curator of art the Met has ever had. She invites Carmilla to work in the archives. She can’t keep working at the bookshop by herself. Someone will notice she’s not aging eventually. Carmilla agrees on the condition that her hours can be at night and Felicity just smiles. Carmilla isn’t fooling anyone.

Working in the archives is everything Carmilla thought it would be. She handles art she’d only ever dreamed of and texts that can be compared to nothing. Felicity is the only one who ever sees her at work and they work hard to keep it that way. If anyone asks Felicity tells them that Carmilla is her little sister, and in the decades that follow her daughter.

Carmilla can never quite keep a straight face at that.

She’s putting away something priceless when Felicity steps into the doorway, her face white and taut with grief. Carmilla counts the years and comes to the right conclusion just as the words spill from Felicity’s mouth.

Laura is gone.

Carmilla takes the week off and curls up in bed for the duration. She thought she’d feel free, feel relief no matter how bitter sweet and awful it was. Instead she feels hollow and carved out. She moves through the world in a daze, clinging to the idea that at least Laura was happy, at least she was loved.

Felicity comes over to on the third day and sits on the end of her bed. The magazine from nearly forty years prior is on the bedside table and she nods to it in an offhand way. The museum board wants to do an exhibit on Laura Hollis, she says, and I told them I had someone who could put it together like no one else in the world.

Carmilla agrees immediately.

It comes together in bits and pieces. She collects all of Laura’s pieces and articles and puts them in order by date. Only the very best are kept, though Carmilla thinks all of Laura’s work is magnificent. For each one she writes a short essay, tracking Laura through her work like she’d done all those years, discovering the person she was from the work she did. When it’s finished she drags Felicity down into the basement to look it over. By the time she’s done reading the descriptions of the pieces she’s grinning and crying and telling Carmilla that the people will love it.

Carmilla corrects Felicity in her head.

The people will love _her._

When the day finally comes to open the exhibit Carmilla refuses to attend the party and the opening ceremony. Those things aren’t for her. The only thing she cares about is Laura. She waits in the gallery and drifts immediately to Felicity when people start pouring in. Felicity introduces her to everyone as the willful young student who put the exhibit together. Carmilla brushes off the praise with practiced ease and lets her mind wander, handing out hallmark phrases like free t-shirts.

She sees the girl standing there under one of her favorite photographs out of the corner of her eye. It is obvious she’s listening in to the conversation between Felicity, Carmilla, and a wealthy patron no one can remember the name of. When the conversation is over Carmilla slinks over to the girl. There’s something familiar about her, something magnetic in the way she tilts her head and shifts on her feet.

“You’ve been staring at that one an awfully long time,” Carmilla says, “Do you have any questions?”

“Yeah, a couple actually,” the young woman replies as she turns around to face Carmilla. The polite smile on Carmilla’s face drops away faster than lightning. Standing there in front of her is Laura, her Laura, the same age as the day Carmilla left. She feels like she’s been punched in the stomach. This can’t be happening. Laura is gone.

“By my calculations we haven’t seen each other in, oh I don’t know, nearly sixty five years and I was just wondering how in the world you found out all this stuff about me without ever dropping by to say hello and wow you really have gotten more attractive haven’t you?” The words spill out of her mouth like an emotional flood of giddy nerves and elation that makes Carmilla’s chest ache and her hands itch. She wants to reach out and take Laura in her arms, hold her until she turns to stone. Instead she’s frozen in place.

“You’re dead,” she breathes. Laura grimaces.

“Yeah, about that… I sort of got myself turned into a vampire after you left and I’ve been looking for you ever since?” Carmilla nearly chokes on disappointment and rage. Turned? What the hell had Laura been thinking? She reaches out and grabs Laura’s wrist, dragging her into the back stairwell as fast as she can. Within seconds she’s turning back, the stew of emotions in her belly turning to anger.

“I cannot believe you seriously went out and got yourself turned for me. Do you know how dangerous vampires can be? Contrary to popular belief I’m actually one of the cuddlier ones, Laura!” Laura frowns and reaches out for Carmilla.

“Hey, look, I’m fine! All in one piece and totally have been for the past sixty odd years! Besides what was I supposed to do? You’re the one who left all high and mighty like you were doing me some kind of service by running out on me!” Carmilla steps away from Laura and shakes her head. She can’t give in right now. After all those years it had been for nothing.

“I was! I was giving you a chance to be normal for once in your life! God Laura, everyone knew how torn up you were that I was going to outlive you. I couldn’t make you live like that, and perhaps I was selfish because I didn’t want to outlive you either and I thought this… distance would soothe the pain of your passing, but it was meant to give you a chance at something real.” Laura sighs in frustration and reaches out again to take Carmilla’s hands in her own. Carmilla bites her lip and let’s her. Laura’s touch is soft and firm just like Carmilla remembers and she nearly sobs when Laura’s fingers graze over her knuckles. Tears are pouring down Laura’s face and all Carmilla can think is that she is the cause of Laura’s pain.

 “Carm, you are real. This is what I want and I’ve spent my entire human life span trying to find you, so that I could have this chance right here with you because it is the only chance that means anything to me at all. I got turned because I’m selfish and stupid and I didn’t want you to outlive me because I wanted to be with you until the day you die and if that day never comes then fine! To hell with death! Just… please don’t leave again.” Carmilla wipes the tears away with her thumb and wraps her arm around Laura’s waist. Laura’s hands fall to Carmilla’s ribs with such familiarity it burns.

“I’m such an idiot,” Carmilla murmurs and she’s looking at Laura with tears in her eyes and a watery smile at her lips that speaks so many more words than her tongue could ever manage.

Laura presses her lips to Carmilla’s so softly it hardly feels real. She’s trembling and digging her fingers into Carmilla’s dress and then they’re kissing again and again and Carmilla thinks that nothing will ever compare to the weight of Laura against her chest.

“I missed you,” Laura sobs, “I missed you every single day.” Carmilla nods and takes shuddering breath after shuddering breath.

“Leaving you was dying all over again,” she whispers. Laura can’t help but run her hands over every part of Carmilla she can get to. She buries her face in Carmilla’s shoulder and just breathes in her scent, all forest and fire and stale copper. Carmilla kisses every inch of Laura’s face and runs her hands through Laura’s hair. She’d forgotten how good Laura feels, how solid and real and alive she is under Carmilla’s fingertips. How had she ever left? How had she even gotten out the door?

“I’m never letting you out of my sight again, you stupid vampire,” Laura mumbles against her collarbone. Carmilla laughs and wipes the tears off her own face.

“Ditto, cupcake.” Laura grins and snuggles further into Carmilla’s arms. Carmilla smiles against her hair and closes her eyes. Forever has never sounded so sweet.

“What do you say we head to my place when this pretentious donor fest is over?” she asks what feels like years later.

“I don’t know,” Laura mumbles, “How about we just... go right now?”

Carmilla snorts and lifts Laura’s chin for another kiss.

Sure, why not.


	3. Chapter 3

Nobody notices them sneak out the back and down the alley behind the MET. Their arms are slung around each other and their faces are pressed close, eyes bright with a fire that was smothered long ago by loneliness and fear. Nothing else exists besides the sidewalk beneath their feet and the biting air of winter numbing their cold, dead hands.

This is what living feels like, they think.

This is worth every single year.

Carmilla still lives above the book shop. Some nice young family runs it now, a pair of fathers and two dimple-ridden brats she sneaks jolly ranchers to in the afternoons. The shop is dark and static in the stillness of the night, just another storefront in the row. Laura stops anyway.

“Well that’s embarrassing,” she muses. Carmilla gives her a curious look.

“What?” she asks. Laura laughs and shakes her head.

“I should’ve known,” she says. Carmilla smirks and pulls her closer.

“I didn’t settle here for years, darling,” she murmurs. Laura lets out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. Carmilla smiles and tugs her toward the side door.

The apartment is small, just two rooms and the adjoining bathroom. Carmilla stands rigidly at the door as Laura paces around peering at everything. There are a few pictures on the walls, her favorite books on the shelves. Carmilla feels like she’s seeing everything for the first time, all the things she’s collected in her fifty odd years above the bookshop. It’s not long to her, no, it’s hardly anything at all.

And yet.

Laura takes it in with wide eyes and unadulterated fascination. She’s never been naive enough to think the Carmilla she would find would be the same as the one who left. Every little thing has meaning, new or old. She learns that Carmilla has taken up guitar again, that her list of favorite bands has lengthened. The kitchen is gathering dust in a totally unsurprising way but the bathroom is clean. As she walks to and fro, Laura feels something nagging at the back of her mind, something she can’t quite put her finger on. For some reason she can’t help but think she’s been in the apartment before.

“Silas,” she realizes, whipping around to gape at Carmilla, “This place feels like Silas!” Carmilla shrugs and wanders over to the book case.

“I didn’t notice until a few weeks after I moved in,” she says. Laura rolls her eyes and crosses the room to Carmilla’s side.

“Would you stop? I like it,” she laughs. Carmilla smiles softly and heads to the fridge.

“Do you want anything?” she asks.

They talk splayed out on the couch in a tangle of limbs. Their glasses of blood stand forgotten on the coffee table, their hands far too busy keeping in touch to lift them away. Carmilla is enthralled with Laura’s tales of the world. They have a few favorite cities in common, and of course a few disagreements. She is not surprised to hear Casper is the one who did the honors, and though she fights a growl at the bite marks on the inside of Laura’s wrist, she admits that Casper is a good, kind man.

Laura kisses her and tells her not to be upset. There wasn’t a moment when her thoughts strayed from Carmilla, not a single second. Carmilla kisses her again without a word. They’ve only made it through discussing the first decade they were apart, but she figures it can wait.

Halfway through their fifteenth kiss, Felicity walks in with a bottle of whiskey and a box of tea cookies. She freezes halfway through the open door, shock flashing across her face. Laura stares at her blankly as Carmilla groans and lets her head fall back onto the couch.

“Lila Hollis?” Felicity asks.

“Um, hi?” Laura says. Carmilla shifts her weight underneath Laura and suddenly they’re rolling off the couch and into a standing position.

“Laura, Felicity. Felicity, Laura,” Carmilla introduces them. Felicity drops the bottle of whiskey. Laura speeds forward and catches it, presenting it to the stunned woman with a bright smile.

“But you’re… we just….” Felicity stutters.

“Yeah… didn’t actually die. Um….” Laura looks back at Carmilla.

“Laura got herself turned into a vampire back before it was the hot new thing,” Carmilla supplies dryly.

“Oh, good, you know about the vampire thing. That was almost the most awkward moment of my life,” Laura sighs. Carmilla snorts and steps over to fix Laura’s hair. Felicity watches in an awed trance.

“Earth to space cadet,” Carmilla says when she sees the look in Felicity’s eye.

“Sorry! I’m just so glad it worked out,” she replies softly.

“What?” Laura says. Felicity laughs and it almost sounds like a sob.

“You probably don’t recognize me. I was just a kid back then. You came into the museum on Carmilla’s birthday all three years I worked at the front desk,” she explains.

“You what?” Carmilla says to Laura. Laura’s mouth drops open.

“I used to come to the museum every year and ask if anyone had seen you,” she admits quietly. Carmilla stares at her a minute and then slowly turns to Felicity.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Felicity shrugs and wipes away the tears in her eyes.

“You were so happy when you found out that Laura had moved on. You slept with that magazine for nearly a year, remember?”

“You don’t say,” Laura mutters, sneaking a delighted look at Carmilla. Carmilla glares at her pointedly. Now is not the time.

“I tried asking you if you wanted to know, but I couldn’t think of how to phrase it without giving it away. I always wondered if I should have told you, but now here you are. Together!” Felicity says.

“Kid…” Carmilla sighs. She walks forward and hugs Felicity tightly.

“You were so angry when I was little, so alone. I didn’t want you to go back to that,” Felicity cries.

“You did the right thing, Felicity. You couldn’t have known what Laura did. You couldn’t have told me. It’s better that Laura found me herself, or that I found her. You are not to blame for this,” Carmilla soothes. Laura watches from the couch, tears spilling down her cheeks for the third or fourth time that night. So this is what she’d been missing.

When Felicity leaves ten minutes later claiming she doesn’t want to get in the middle of their reunion, Laura and Carmilla retire to the bedroom. They lay side by side on Carmilla’s bed in silence, revelling in being close. Laura is so happy to be a few meager inches from Carmilla, but the tug on her heart is growing with every second she doesn’t know.

“So where’d you find Felicity?” she asks. Carmilla quirks an eyebrow at her and drags her fingertips along Laura’s side.

“She’s the granddaughter of the woman who used to own this place, Lucy. She died a while back,” Carmilla replies.

“Were the two of you ever…?” Laura cringes. Carmilla sits up, something unreadable crawling it’s way across her face.

“No, Laura, most certainly not. She took me in when I was wandering the world looking for a home. There hasn’t been anyone else since you. I could never love anyone like I do you,” Carmilla promises.

“I just feel like I’ve missed so much. The way you acted with Felicity… I’ve never seen you like that before. We’re entirely different people,” Laura says.

“Maybe we are, but you’re still my Laura. Nothing in the world could change that,” Carmilla murmurs. Laura sighs and sits up.

“Carmilla, I’m serious. We can’t just go back to the way we were before,” Laura insists. Carmilla licks her lips and tries to ignore the growing sense of uneasiness in her stomach.

“What do you suggest?” she asks.

“I think we should start over,” Laura says. Carmilla stares at her in the moonlight, all silver against the paleness of Laura’s skin and wise in the look on her face.

“You mean, act as if we’ve never met each other?” Laura bites her lip and traces the v-neck of Carmilla’s dress.

“Okay, so we don’t totally start over, but we should at least take things slow,” she decides. Carmilla snorts and tucks Laura back into her side.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

They go on dates the first few months. Laura discovers that Carmilla is addicted to the new bio engineered coffee beans and slow music in revival dance halls. Carmilla still works at the MET and Laura goes with her often to watch her unpack priceless art pieces. She recognizes some of them, and Carmilla finds that Laura’s knowledge and passion for the classic pieces of her generation has grown. She is also prone to doing puzzles or the crossword before bed, a habit she’d never even shown interest in during their years at Silas.

It’s on a rainy Tuesday afternoon that they stumble back into the apartment soaking wet and hysterical. Between them they have eight packets of blood stuffed in the pockets of their coats and forty curses on their tongues. The downpour had started several blocks away, catching them totally unaware and woefully unprepared. Laura laughs and laughs as they strip out of their clothes in the middle of the living room, hair clinging to her shoulders and her forehead. Carmilla can’t even begin to be grumpy in the face of such infectious joy and she’s grinning like an idiot as she rings her hair out and puts the blood into the refrigerator.

The adrenaline soon fades and they’re left standing there, in their underwear, with little to do but look at each other. Laura moves first. She drags Carmilla closer by her neck and kisses her hard. Carmilla pulls their bodies flush, her hands jumping to cup Laura’s ass as soon as they’re able. Somehow they manage the three steps to the bedroom, an awkward fall to the bed, and an even more awkward scramble to get all the involved body parts into all the appropriate places.

Carmilla is more than a little weird about Laura’s super strength but damn does it come in handy.

Later, when they’re drifting off to sleep to the sound of the rain on the old shingles, Laura kisses the scar on Carmilla’s breast and snuggles impossibly closer.

“So that was… different,” she says.

“I guess we still have a lot more to learn about each other,” Carmilla whispers, a mischievous grin flashing across her lips. Laura tilts her head to the side at the sight of Carmilla’s fangs.

“Why are your fangs still out? I mean, seriously, that was like 12 rounds,” she laughs.

“Yours are still out too, darling,” Carmilla points out dryly. Laura puts her fingers to her mouth and gasps.

“What? I mean I know sex makes them do the thing, but I’m not…. are they stuck like this? Are we going to be okay?” She asks. Carmilla laughs and prods Laura’s teeth.

“Sometimes we get so comfortable that our fangs just don’t retract. Retraction in itself is a safety measure triggered by our feeling self-conscious and wary in our surroundings. Faced with extreme fear, they obviously erupt again. Just means that we feel 100% safe and confident in this environment. Rare, perhaps, but normal,” Carmilla explains. Laura stares at her in surprise.

“Is this the first time for you, too?” she asks curiously.

“No. It used to happen all the time when we were back at Silas,” Carmilla answers softly.

“It did?” Carmilla nods.

“You just never noticed cause when you were human you fell asleep ten seconds after you finished every. Single. Time,” she teases. Laura blushes faintly, the most she can manage as a vampire, and plays with the thin sheet over her legs.

“Safe, huh?” she says after a moment. Carmilla kisses her and rolls over to go to sleep. Within seconds, Laura’s pressed up behind her with her arm around Carmilla’s middle. Carmilla smiles.

Safe.

Laura drags Carmilla back home after six months. Laf and Perry are delighted to see her, well into their nineties and surrounded by tiny ginger great-grandbabies. Carmilla doesn’t know what to say when Laf hobbles over and gives her a bone-crushing hug, or when Perry clasps her hands around Carmilla’s and begins filling her in on every single thing she’s missed. She flees at the first chance she gets and stands outside in the spring air just breathing.

When she goes back in, everyone is still there. Laura catches her eye over the heads of the two eldest daughters and frowns. She can feel it, too.

Laura’s house in France is more modern than Carmilla would have imagined. It’s small, a simple one story with big windows and furniture in soft warm colors. The walls are covered with pictures of people and places from around the world. It’s exactly the kind of thing Carmilla would expect from Laura after the last six months.

There’s a skylight in her bedroom. Carmilla takes one look at it and knows exactly why it’s there. Laura just shrugs and goes to the kitchen to get something to drink. They never talk about it, but later that night as they drift off to sleep Carmilla whispers the names of constellations into Laura’s ear.

Carmilla and Casper bump into each other three days after they arrive in France completely by accident. She’s on her way into the kitchen to get more blood and Laura is out of the house, off somewhere running errands as “Lila.” Casper comes in the back door with a jack russel and a tune, two pints of blood in his hands.

They size each other up casually. Neither of them has a very good reputation. Both of them are acceptable to Laura.

“Long time no see,” Casper says in english. Carmilla smirks and responds in french.

Casper offers her the second pint and the two of them wander onto the back porch. Laura finds them there a few hours later when she returns. They’re in the middle of some weird sea shanty and Laura knows they’re wasted on sight. The empty pints of blood smell heavily of Casper’s moonshine. He sleeps on the couch that night, too drunk to wander home.

Carmilla nuzzles her way into Laura and is out like a light. Laura runs her hands through Carmilla’s hair and watches the stars.

Carmilla had been right.

Even after all those years, she’s still Laura’s.

When Laura asks if Carmilla wants to go back home Carmilla shrugs and suggests they travel together. After all, they’d always planned to after Laura finished school. They chart a course across every continent and pack only the essentials. None of the places are new, per say, but travelling together puts a new spin on even the most classic destinations. They end up getting “married” along the way, a ceremony in which they toss rings at each other vaguely and in the dark with the stars shining down on them.

Neither of them are legally alive or in a country they have citizenship in, anyway.

They stay away for nearly two years, dropping a phone call to their odd family every couple of weeks. The night they return to Laura’s house they are exhausted and dirty from a trek through the countryside. Laura throws her pack on the floor of the living room and physically droops towards the shower. Carmilla is close behind her, even more sluggish in her approach.

The phone on the table rings not two seconds after they step in and Laura groans. She goes to pick it up anyway, because she’s Laura, and answers only with a half coherent noise of greeting. A frantic voice shrieks at her from the other end.

The phone falls from her hand.

Carmilla forces her into the shower before they go and calls Casper to drive. They curl up in the back seat together and somehow the soothing to and fro of the car lulls them to sleep. When they wake, a bright sign declaring “HOSPITAL” in red glowing letters is shining at them from the passenger side window.

Perry is on the third floor in a big room with wide windows and a dozen sunflowers along the wall. Laf sits at her side, surrounded by their family. The doctors explain that there is nothing they can do but make Perry comfortable. Laf grips her hand as tightly as they dare, the children and grandchildren and great grandchildren whispering their goodbyes and their loves in the hours of dusk.

She dies at 11:14 pm at the age of 96 with a smile on her face and her soulmate at her side and Carmilla holds Laura while she cries even as the tears stream down her own face because it is the only thing she can do.

The family trickles out until it is just the four of them left. The doctors try to take Perry away but Laura stops them, tells them to give them a few more minutes. Laf is dull and unresponsive when Laura and Carmilla ask them if they want to say goodbye and it is then that Laura looks at Carmilla and knows what will happen next.

They help Laf into the bed next to Perry as gently as they can and guard the door.

By dawn, Perry and Laf are together again.

Laura and Carmilla attend the funeral awkwardly and with little success. They can’t regale anyone with stories of their time at Silas or those first few years Laf and Perry were together. They can’t even explain how they knew the two of them. Juliet, the eldest, is the only one who gives Laura a knowing glance over the caskets, and a grateful smile as they leave.

Laura spirals into her lowest point over the next few years. When her dad had died it had been devastating but at least it was something that seemed normal. Here she was looking 22 and her best friends in the world were dead of old age. Carmilla gives her space, forces her to drink when she has to, holds her when the nightmares jolt her awake. She sells the house in France and they go back to the United States to live close to Felicity. All Laura can see in that place with the pictures on the walls is death, death, death.

She avoids Felicity at the beginning. Carmilla explains that Felicity shouldn’t take it personally, that Laura is going through a loss and adjusting to the idea that for the rest of their lives they will always be losing the people they love and they will never be the ones who are lost.

Felicity hunts Laura down one day and offers her a cup of coffee at the place down the street.

Laura refuses but Felicity sits down next to her and tells her that she’s got at least twenty years left before the national average. That at least gets her a smile and she asks Laura to tell her about Laf and Perry. Laura starts slow, the obvious things and the more prominent quirks they each had. By the time Carmilla comes to find them, Laura is halfway through the story of the runaway lab cow. There are tears in her eyes and a smile on her lips and she asks Carmilla how she’d raised such a great kid with so little time to do it.

Carmilla shrugs and says it helped that Felicity wouldn’t leave her alone.

Felicity smiles proudly and proposes coffee a second time like nothing is even happening.

When she goes two and a half decades later they do not attend the funeral. They stand off between the headstones and watch the ceremony through sideways glances and nonchalant looks. Carmilla doesn’t cry, but when they get home she lights a candle and they watch it until it burns all the way down.

With no one to drift towards, they wander across the globe looking for a place to call their own. The world is spinning off without them, even Laura who is young enough to still sometimes understand the newest generations. Technology and science are beyond their wildest dreams and still the humans are breeding war and death to the planet.

It’s not that they give up, exactly. It’s just that they’ve fought their battles. They’ve won their titles. Everything they’ve ever wanted has been there’s.

After 200 hundred years, even Laura is satisfied that she’s done everything she’s wanted to do.

They find a small farm house only forty years younger than Laura in a reclusive part of what becomes many countries eventually but used to be Styria, long ago when Carmilla was young. They settle there and get a dog or two, because dogs are always dying before humans anyway, and it seems easier than trying to make friends with people who can’t understand who they are under the circumstances.

Life continues on. They spend their days hiking and enjoying whatever new thing humanity spits out, technology they couldn’t even dream of back when they were human. Laura finds a way to start an anonymous blog on the mentalnet and spends her days ranting about the state of the world while Carmilla gives her ideas for cutting insults to direct at the “peasants.” Neither gets tired of the other, not even for a week. The longer they live the less they can go on without the other. That fact is fine by them, they decide. They weren’t planning on separating anyway.

They still travel, still adventure. Laura still laughs at Carmilla’s weird reverse humor and Carmilla still smiles at Laura’s unending energy. Their days are full of joys and sorrows and all manner of things that mark a normal retirement. Even though their bodies don’t age, they are getting pretty old.

Carmilla uses this as an excuse to put 200 candles on Laura’s birthday cake one year.

Technically, the house is fine.

They live on that land for two hundred years before the trees start to die, every single tree in the world all at once with no explanation besides “We should have been more careful,” “We should have listened to the environmental scientists,” “We should have taken care of our planet.”

The humans find a new planet soon enough, a neighboring galaxy that has been visited once or twice by the newest manned spacecraft. People race to get tickets. Laura and Carmilla sit on their couch watching the madness on the hologram, glancing at each other every so often in disbelief.

“I don’t want to go,” Laura says when the transmission ends.

Their family is buried on the earth, their lives, their memories.

Nothing to a dying world it seems.

“If everyone leaves there will be nothing left to eat,” Carmilla says quietly. Laura shifts on Carmilla’s lap and looks into her eyes.

“Does that mean you want to go?” she asks. Carmilla bites her lip and presses a soft kiss to Laura's forehead.

“Not necessarily,” she replies.

They discuss the pros and cons over the next few days in half statements and sleepless nights. Living is obviously a plus. Neither of them wants to die exactly. Seeing outer space is another one Laura checks off as a potential perk and Carmilla quietly adds Capser, who has already called to tell them he has a ticket. On the other hand, Laura concedes, if they go they can never come back. It makes her sick to think about, the fact that their home will just be gone. All the people they loved left behind, all the places they know barren and dead. There is a feeling like if the earth dies, she will die as well, simply on principle. Carmilla feels even more anxious about it than Laura. As much as she wants to survive, she’s never quite felt at home in even Laura’s generation. The only things she has are the classics, the past, and Laura.

On the last day Laura adds another con to the list that pretty much makes the decision for her. If she and Carmilla get tickets, two people who truly need them will not. Laura has lived for four lifetimes and the people vying for those spots have barely lived one and there is something so undeniably unfair about it that she breezes around the house angrily for three days. Laura cannot take the lives of innocent people in order to save her own, vampire or not.

They decide to go on one last trip around the world, eventually.

Nothing is the same, not a single thing, but here and there they can find hints of the world they used to know, of the buildings they used to exist along side. Even Carmilla, three hundred years older than Laura, finds a thing or two from the time she considers her own era.

They say goodbye quietly and in the night, like vampires do.

Six months later they watch the ships take off from the field next to the launch pad and as the last of humanity disappears from the face of the earth, their hands find each other. They take the car back home, the only home they knew together, and curl up in bed with a few good books.

Two hours into the wait, Laura lets out a frustrated sigh and sits up.

“We can’t end it like this,” she says. Carmilla raises an eyebrow at her but Laura just smiles.

“Come on,” she says, “Let’s go.”

They pack their favorite things into backpacks and begin the walk in the morning. By the time they reach the campus they’ve lost a week of the rest of their lives and Laura feels like the hunger is going to eat her alive. Carmilla seems to withstand it with a slightly less affected attitude, but even she can feel the end drawing near as they stare up at their old dorm, crumbled into ruin after the school closed more than a hundred years ago.

Finding 307 is easy enough. It’s one of the only rooms still standing, though that definition requires a grain of salt and a slight slant to the left to truly be accurate. Carmilla blames all the wards they put on the room back when they were attending school for keeping it intact. The furniture is gone, but they figured they would have to make due anyway.

When they’re finally curled up on the floor, Laura turns to Carmilla and smiles.

“You know something awesome? I got to live almost four hundred years with you,” she says quietly.

“What about that 65 we missed?” Carmilla asks. Laura shrugs.

“I never stopped loving you,” she explains. Carmilla wraps her arms around Laura’s shoulder and buries her face in her hair.

“I’ll love you forever,” she says.

“And after,” Laura adds. Carmilla glances down at her in confusion.

“Just something someone told me once,” Laura says, “That love never really goes away.”

“If Casper weren’t on a spaceship a millions miles away right now, I’d have half a mind to thank him,” Carmilla replies.

The days go by faster than either of them can remember. Laura gets the shakes first, just little twitches and odd shivers. Carmilla curls around her and covers her with kisses even though her hands are trembling and the world seems murky in an odd, sleepy sort of way.

“Hey, Carm?” Laura croaks, “I’ll see you on the other side okay?” Carmilla smiles through her own muscles spasms, refusing to let Laura go even as convulsions start rippling through her body.

“It’s amazing to me you still believe there is one,” she whispers, “But either way I’m not leaving you.” Laura smiles through the feeling of all her cells deteriorating.

“I love you,” she whispers.

“I love you, too.” Carmilla chokes out.

When the night breeze rolls through the building later that night, all that’s left are two lines of dust on a blanket surrounded by photographs and cherished objects. The wind picks the dust up in its tender hands and swirls it together, mixing the two sets of remains forever and sweeping them away.

Above them, the stars shine brightly into oblivion.


End file.
